Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Luton in 1967, led throughout their history by singer, flautist and guitarist Ian Anderson. Named after the 18th-century agricultural pioneer, the band started out in blues rock before forging a distinctive progressive-folk identity rarely matched in rock music — Anderson’s flute playing, often performed while standing on one leg, became the band’s signature visual and sonic trademark.

The band’s commercial peak came with the album Aqualung, whose title track and «Locomotive Breath» became rock radio staples, followed by the ambitious concept album Thick as a Brick, a single continuous song that took progressive rock’s structural ambitions to an extreme. Later records such as Songs from the Wood pushed the group toward a folk-rock direction steeped in English pastoral imagery, cementing a sound that fused hard rock riffs with medieval and folk textures.

Over decades of shifting lineups around Anderson, guitarist Martin Barre became the band’s other constant creative voice. Jethro Tull remain one of progressive rock’s most idiosyncratic and enduring acts, known as much for their theatricality and literary songwriting as for their musicianship.